Chapter Text
Grace hadn't turned up to teach his class that morning; Rocky gets the wire immediately.
Grace always shows up to teach his class. Even if he's really not in a fit state for it (Rocky thinks he'd still try to teach his class if he had broken all four of his limbs beforehand). And so, the second Rocky hears about it, he's speeding across the city with a steady flow of panic building under his carapace.
They sent someone to check on him right away, of course. But knocking on the door hadn't received an answer, and what they found inside had been even more worrying. All they had told Rocky was that they didn’t have a precedent for this, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger so they would wait for him to arrive. As if they had a precedent for any of this, Rocky thought bitterly as he thundered down the road as fast as his five legs would take him.
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Rocky sent gravel scattering as he skidded to a halt at Grace's door. He forced himself to take a second so his vents could cool, passing out on his doorstep wouldn't be of much help to Grace right now. "Grace?" He called, rapping against the door. Sure enough, nothing. They had decently soundproofed the outside of the house enough to afford him privacy in his own home; Grace would have to raise his voice to be heard from the outside. But even if Rocky couldn’t hear him, it's not as if there were anywhere else he would be… so what was wrong? Rocky's mind ran through disaster after disaster, the words 'no immediate danger' from the wire the only thing stopping him from completely unravelling with worry.
He knocked again, sharp and incessant.
Silence.
He braced himself and opened the door.
The second the stepped across the threshold of soundproofing, he was able to see every inch of the house, including Grace. Rocky stopped in his tracks, tapping at the floor to confirm what he was hearing.
Nothing could have prepared him for this.
Grace was curled up under the bedframe in the room he sleeps in, heart beating erratically and limbs shaking in a way that made Rocky want to keen with worry. But none of that was what had caused him to freeze, no, it was the fact that Grace seemed to be about half the size of his usual self.
Not in the way he had been when they arrived on Erid, half his weight shed as his body ate itself to stay alive. Not as if he had spontaneously lost any limbs, and was now simply half his mass as a result. But as if he had simply… shrunk. Down to the size of a young human pebble (his only point of reference the many tales they had 'watched' together on the walls of the Hail Mary). Curled up like he was under the bed, he was the same size as Rocky.
Was this some bizarre human phenomenon that Grace had simply forgotten to mention? Like 'dreaming' or 'spatial memory'? But then why would he seem so panicked about it?
No immediate danger, they had assured him. He must be physically okay, just… really small. And he was clearly upset and disoriented about it. That, Rocky could handle.
He had navigated his friend's unravelling countless times aboard the Hail Mary, just as Grace had done for him when he experienced bouts of his own shattered mental state nipping at his heels.
Rocky slowly opens the door to the bedroom, cringing as he feels Grace's (now tiny) heartbeat kick up impossibly faster, the rhythm jackrabbiting against the floorboards and into his carapace.
"Grace?" Rocky sings in soft, lullaby tones. "It’s me, Rocky. You're okay, everything's okay. Were on Erid, I am safe, you are safe." He desperately tries to comfort him, worry settling in cold within his carapace as his notes clearly go unheard to Grace's ears. In fact, he hears a terribly small, frightened noise escape him at the sound of Rocky's song and he seems to curl up even tighter into his little corner under the bed, trembling all the while.
Rocky hummed a small, dissatisfied note to himself (one well above Grace's hearing range, as to not stress him any further). Whatever was happening to his friend, he wasn’t all there right now. Which meant Rocky needed to remember how to treat him when he was a jumbled mess of panicky human survival instincts.
Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor, tucking in his limbs in a way that made him as small as possible. Rocky wasn't particularly big or intimidating even by eridian standards, but it usually helped anyways. He made sure to keep his distance at first, physical touch almost always helped pull Grace out of a panic attack, but only if he knowingly accepted it first, Rocky had learnt the hard way about that.
"May I come closer?" He ventured.
Nothing.
This smaller version of Grace was still staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, breath coming out of him in a strangled high whine. It… almost sounded like he was trying to supress the noise of it. But why would he?
Oh. Rocky was an idiot.
He had been so caught up in his worry for Grace, he hadn’t been paying attention to the room past anything else. He listened through Grace to the rest of the space, and just as he suspected— it was too quiet. The tones of the room missing the typical incandescent hum of the lights on. Shit.
Grace couldn’t see Rocky properly, and his human instincts were probably screaming at him to be still, be quiet, hide. If he was in his right mind, he would know he was on Erid. He would know that it didn’t matter, that there was no danger to him here. But clearly in this moment, his mind wasn’t on Erid.
Slowly, keeping himself as small as he could, Rocky crept over to the dial that controlled the lights. He turned it carefully, not all the way, listening out for the specific pitch that Grace described as a 'nice warm glow', his favourite setting for the lights.
But as Rocky settled back down at the mouth of the space created by the bedframe and the floor, Grace hadn’t seemed to settle at all. Instead, he had brought his hand up to further muffle the sound of his beathing (he shouldn't do that, Rocky didn’t like the way he could hear it constricting his airflow) and had shut his eyes tight.
So, the lights weren’t helping, Grace had shut his eyes against them, or… perhaps it was against the sight of Rocky. That hurt to think about, but it was not unheard of, human trauma responses tend to muddle their already fragile memory. There were a few unpleasant instances of Grace forgetting who Rocky was entirely, particularly towards the end of the trip as his mind dwindled alongside his lacklustre food supply. Thankfully it was never for long, but it was worrying, nonetheless.
This was either a particularly bad bout or… something else was at play, likely related to the unexplained phenomenon of why he was so small right now. Despite himself, Rocky hoped it was the former. At least that he knew Grace would recover from.
What else could he do?
"Grace" Rocky tried again, tones impossibly softer. "Grace hear me, question?" He reverted back to their English-Eridian pidgin, perhaps it was just that his over-worked mind just didn't have the capacity for full eridian language right now. "Grace is okay, Grace Rocky on Erid. Safe safe safe."
But… nothing. Grace just continued to look terrified, and like he was trying to make himself even impossibly smaller.
Rocky had one last card to play. Slowly, always slowly, Rocky got up to go fetch his translator. There were a few versions lying around the house, it didn’t take long to find one with power still. He settled back down and tried again.
"Friend Grace, question?" Rocky tried, and finally something. Something like recognition as Grace's eyes flew back open, jolting at the sound of his home language.
Rocky kept going, using the pidgin just in case. "Grace. You are okay, you are safe. We are home, on Erid. No danger, No hurt."
Grace shakily lowered his hands from his mouth, though his breathing was no less stilted.
"What wrong, Grace, question?" Please, please talk to me. Rocky didn't know how much longer he could handle the blank lack of recognition in Grace's eyes. It was worse than that… it was fear.
A small, squeaky voice broke the silence "W- what are you? How do you know my n-name?"
"Grace not know who I am, question?" Rocky asked, feeling his mercury run cold as he dreaded to hear the answer.
Sure enough, Grace shook his head, the smallest little action that cut right through Rocky's core.
Rocky keened in a high-pitched worry, again, making sure to keep it at a higher pitch than Grace could hear. Then cut off abruptly as he watched Grace flinch at the sound.
He could hear? Grace normally couldn’t hear sounds above 18000Hz—
Suddenly it all clicked into place. Grace's small stature, the loss of all his memories (again), his apparent fear of his best friend… his response to Rocky's high-frequency keen, Grace had once explained that human pebbles start with a higher range of hearing that degrades as they age.
Sure, the bigger picture of the puzzle didn’t make any sense, but he couldn't deny how well the pieces fit together. And it explained a lot about Grace's behaviour right now.
"…How old is Grace, question?"
"S-six."
Grace's small, shaky voice confirmed his wild hypothesis with undeniable certainty.
Okay. Okay he could deal with this. Grace and Rocky have dealt with much worse things together and survived. They could figure out spontaneous de-ageing and subsequent secondary bout of memory loss. It would be fine.
Okay. Rocky needed to push down the desire to freak out, it wouldn’t help anything right now. Right now, he needed to figure out what could he do about it. Grace was in the body and mind of a pebble, a new-hatch in an Eridian timeline, but still very very young even by earth standards... Oh god, Rocky couldn’t do this.
But he had to do something. Grace was still huddled under the bed, scared, afraid and looking so painfully alone.
First priority, showing him that he wasn't in any danger. In as small a melody as he could voice, Rocky sung "My name Rocky, friendly, will not hurt."
Grace's eyes darted to the side, clearly still terrified, he swallowed and asked "W-what are you?"
"Rocky is an alien to Human race, name Eridians." He sung gently, "friendly," he tacked on again for good measure.
When the word 'alien' filtered through the transmitter, Grace's eyes finally sparked with something that wasn’t fear. Intrigue, and if Rocky dared to hope, maybe even a flash of wonder.
"You're an alien?" Grace's voice scarcely above a whisper.
Rocky internally mused that of course Grace had always had an interest in astrobiology, even since he was a pebble. "Yes alien, from planet Erid." He pointedly left out that Grace too, was on Erid. He didn’t think it would help much.
"And you're… you're not gonna hurt me?" Grace asked, voice so painfully small.
Rocky stamped down the flare of rage he felt at the mere prospect that he would harm Grace. It would not be helpful in this situation; he needed to make Grace understand that without scaring him further. "Not hurt, not scary" Rocky punctuated his promise with a minute shake of his carapace.
Another precious spark of recognition as Grace seemed to comprehend the mimicked human gesture, uncurling ever so slightly as he watched Rocky shake his 'head'. The mimicry! Of course, mimicking his human behaviours had been how Rocky conveyed that he meant no harm to the strange alien back in Tau Ceti's orbit.
Getting an idea, Rocky slowly lifted his arms and performed a silly little dance move, the wavy one Grace had done at their first meeting. To Rocky's immediate relief, Grace laughed. It was small and hesitant, but it was undeniably an expression of joy. "You dance!" Came a surprised voice from under the bedframe.
Rocky nodded his carapace encouragingly, now working as many human gestures into his body language as he could. "See, question? Rocky not scary, Rocky great dancer!"
"Do another!"
Rocky revelled in feeling Grace's breathing even out, petering down from that unnatural, too-fast rhythm. But still, he was curled up against the hard floor, no doubt causing bruising where bones press into the unyielding surface. "If Grace comes out from under the bed, then Rocky will do another."
Grace thought for a moment, clearly building up his nerve to leave the safety of his spot curled up against the wall. Then slowly started crawling forwards, gaze fixed on Rocky the whole time. Thankfully his demeanour had seemed to shift from full-scale terrified to a now-appropriate level of wariness. Still, he hesitated before he moved within Rocky's grasp, "Are you sure you don’t secretly want to eat me?"
"No! Ew! Disgust disgust disgust!" Rocky cringed away from him, losing control of his composure for a moment in his abhorrence at the suggestion of eating his friend. It was bad enough that Rocky was sometimes around to watch as he ate himself.
"Rocky alien that eat metals, not squishy human insides. Grace not worry"
Rocky slowly held out his claw, an offering for Grace. He reached out, movements still hesitant, like he was going to scamper back to the corner at any sudden movement. Rocky was holding as still as he possibly could.
Grace grabbed his claw, and Rocky gently grasped back, hyper-aware of how fragile his bones felt under such a thin layer of skin. As soon as Grace was out from under the bed Rocky trilled in praise, shaking his hands with joy.
"You can do Jazz hands!"
"Yes!" Rocky trilled, "is both human dance move and Eridian expression of joy!" Rocky had delighted at this discovery when they first developed the language to convey the gesture's meaning to each other.
He watched as Grace clumsily re-created the movement and stifled a laugh at the unfamiliar, inelegant way this version of Grace moved.
Now that he was out from under the bedframe and uncurled from his frightened, defensive position, Rocky could get a proper look at Grace's current form. Despite the rather obvious effect of his far smaller stature and miniaturised features that came along with it, there were several other things to note. His eyes were proportionally bigger, his face rounder and lacking any of the fur that typically covered the lower half, his skin smooth and untextured. And… Rocky tapped the ground to make sure he of what he was seeing— was that two sets of teeth?
Rocky had a million and one questions, mind running wild on theories and hypotheses on what could have led to this situation and more importantly, how to fix it.
But all of that could wait, Rocky thought with a determination he never thought he would be able to feel again, after all those years lost to the empty gaping maw of space, all that mattered right now was that he had a pebble to look after.